Ipw3945
Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Mini-PCI Express AdapterThis is a Mini-PCI Express WiFi Adapter Features
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IBM Partnumbers
41A4068 (From Wireless & networking accessories - ThinkPad T60/p)
Also known (in IBM literature) as....
- From annoucement letter 106-068, 'Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG8 wireless connection'
Packages
- Fedora
- Packages: http://www.atrpms.net/dist/fc5/ipw3945
- Helpful Thread: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?t=436357
- ATrpms yum repo rpm: http://atrpms.net/dist/common/atrpms/atrpms-67-1.at.noarch.rpm.html
- NOTE: The T60p uses the smp kernel which the ipw3945 yum install does not provide. You will need the smp kernel for your architecture found at http://www.atrpms.net/dist/fc5/ipw3945. Remove the non-smp kernel and replace it with the appropriate smp kernel. Wireless works great for me... --Herlo 18:06, 22 June 2006 (CEST)
- Mandriva
- Mandriva's kernel comes with the ipw3945 module (since at least 2006.0 Update One)
- dkms package (dkms-ipw3945) can be found in contrib (currenlty cooker only, thus will probably be in 2007.0)
- Additional Packages: ipw3945d and ipw3945-ucode, both either available in the commercial distribution (or club) or from http://plf.zarb.org/
- Gentoo
- Debian
- The ipw3945 microcode is available in the firmware-ip3945 package (currently only in experimental).
- The ipw3945 regulatory daemon and module source are in the process of being packaged. See Bugs #372118 and #363967.
- Unofficial packages are available from Russell Stuart, Stefan Lippers-Hollmann, and Joachim Reichel.
- Ubuntu
- Ubuntu Dapper has already built in this drivers; it works out from the box.
Linux WiFi driver
The most recent revision of the Intel Centrino platform utilizes a new generation of wireless networking device connected to the system via PCI-E, and not PCI (like the ipw2200-line used to do). Therefore, a new driver must be used. A sourceforge-project supporting the new cards is available at http://ipw3945.sourceforge.net/. However, as of today, the project's code (Stable Release 1.0.0) depends on a binary-only, proprietary user-space-daemon communicating with the driver via sysfs. It is not possible to operate this device with Free Software exclusively at the moment. The license-terms the daemon is released under prohibit reverse-engineering of the communication-protocol; this will hopefully not hold developers outside the US, where clauses like this one are not enforceable, from re-implementing a free variant of some sort.
External Discussion
This issue already sparked discussions on the Linux Kernel Mailing List, accessible via http://lkml.org/lkml/2006/2/24/266.
Current State
The ipw2200-drivers in kernel 2.6.15 (and possibly later) do not work with this adapter. There is no mainline-kernel support at the moment, and without a change in the license of the required user-space-daemon, or mechanics of the code itself, probably will never be any.
Some comments
ipw3945 works with http://ipw3945.sourceforge.net/ drivers. A Spanish summary, but easy to understand about how to install: [EsDebian-es Forum|http://www.esdebian.org/forum/viewtopic.php?forum=18&showtopic=69543], maxim_o message (longer)
Thinkpad topic: remember to switchon the wireless-switch! But you will not be able to enable the Wireless LED with Fn+F5, it is not a problem.
One more comment: if you want monitor mode, you need to uncomment CONFIG_IPW3945_MONITOR=y line from ipw3645-1.1.0 Makefile.
